Blue Devil Ballad
by Romipen
Summary: The Mojave wanted her alive, skittering across its bone-bleached expanses with a message. But right now, cold decked, the Courier folded. Vegas was still miles away. / Vignettes. F!Courier/Silus Feat. Vulpes, Boone, Graham.
1. I

**DISCLAIMER: **Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><strong>AN: **Vignettes concerning Courier Six.

* * *

><p><strong>I.<strong>

_I got a letter this mornin, how do you reckon it read?  
>It said, "Hurry, hurry, yeah, your love is dead"<br>I got a letter this mornin, I say how do you reckon it read?  
>You know, it said, "Hurry, hurry, how come the gal you love is dead?"<em>

_..._

Later, she would come to appreciate the irony of the ditch they dumped her in. Her dirt bed. The bone orchard. Her six-foot death trap. The dirt they shucked over her - Mojave soil. But see, the Mojave wanted her alive; skittering across its bone-bleached expanses with a message, a purpose to be delivered - dry and acidic as everything else across its blistering tides. Scorched. Peeling by day. Night was the Mojave's dirty trick. Dark settles across and the desert's black velvet, breaks out in orange blemishes; hot desperation. Nowhere for shade, nowhere for warmth. Nowhere except in the Valley of the Kings. Only under the blanket of the Mojave does the world invert. Dim and cool under the burning sun, soft and warm below a blue moon.

So when the girl went to bless the world with her heels in the Dark Valley, the Mojave wrapped its warm embrace around her and waited patiently for Vegas. For even a thousand miles away the night couldn't push back those lights; always watching. A city that never slept, even as its girl cashed out. Threw in her chips. Flat bust. But see, the Mojave wanted her alive, and the House always won. And when the warm Mojave was shucked half-ass across her shallow hole, it held its girl gently and waited for Vegas to come. Lights like a second sun, like how the war lit up the valley in a time before.

Later, the girl would come to appreciate the irony of the ditch they dumped her in. But right now, head a bloody hole to the world, cold decked, she folded.

And Vegas was still miles away.

* * *

><p><em>"Death Letter"<em>


	2. II

**DISCLAIMER: **Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><strong>AN: **Vignettes concerning Courier Six.

* * *

><p><strong>II.<strong>

_Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,  
>For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,<br>For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,  
>Here is a strange and bitter crop.<em>

...

The first time she had seen Legion it was through the scope of Sunny's gift-rifle. Black smoke plumed up to a red sky. A russet sunset over the town of Nipton. A town that burned acrid rubber and something more sulfurous, something musky. The smell was all wrong and a place in the back of her mind hinted that she recognized it. She sighted for a while longer, creeping amongst the wrecks of caravan trailers, making sure to avoid the direct road. There was not much more creeping before figures came into focus in the lens. Figures that hustled with a mechanical grace; a disciplined grace. A strange waltz amidst the burning town. Like a moth to the flame, curiosity drove her towards the catastrophe.

A man came running out of the ruin just then, ragged and dirtied and hollering about the lottery. _The _lottery. The only lottery that mattered. She couldn't follow his hysterics and a part of her wanted him away. Now. The part that recognized what he was. The part that wanted to pull tight on the trigger of her rifle. By now she knew better about Powder Gangers. Knew their ways by experience. Maybe it showed; maybe he could see it on her face. Just like the fresh scar that showed against her crown. A moment later and he was gone, running far from the place where black smoke bloomed. She hesitated momentarily, caught in a rift between terror and fascination. Should she follow? But like a moth to the flame, always, she couldn't leave it well enough alone.

She would see the Legion flag many more times but forever would she remember them at Nipton. There at the entrance, mounted and billowing, she first looked up in wonder. Was it the first time? She crept further into the wreckage and that sweet, sulfuric stench rose to greet her. There, within the plumes, were withered and scorched bodies twisted from flame. Kindle. The worst kind to gather. And along the roadway, like more banners strung high, bodies mounted to timber. The dead and the slowly dying. She brought a hand to her nose, eyes already burning against the ash and noxious fumes. She could see where the flesh charred, where the ash was pulling from bone, where the bone blackened and juices bubbled and spat.

She gagged. "What the _hell_?"

Her body was rigid, tight; survival instinct. Legs like steel rods and she couldn't leave. She was mesmerized by the carnage, hypnotized by the chemical burn in her lungs, her eyes, her mouth. She crept towards the figures - now identified as soldiers - assembled before the shadow of a large, central building. What had been a town hall, perhaps, when there had been a town.

She distinguished him from the rest quickly and easily - the leering maw atop his head, fangs spread forever in a grisly grin. Memorable. Consequential. The conspicuous vision came to meet her, the host welcoming guests to his party. That was the first time she met Vulpes Inculta.

The beast-headed man was almost serene in the way he assured her that he had no intention of subjecting her to the same fate as Nipton. To hang. To burn. Perhaps her eyes had betrayed her, had shown the fear, the vulnerability. She was almost angry with herself. Perhaps she would have been if she hadn't been so blinded by his presence; in awe of the violence before her. It was like a melody something behind her shattered skull thrummed to. When Vulpes began to speak of the town, she became entranced by his words with morbid wonder. They were words that bade her to behold the carnage, the ruin of this wasted settlement; ash and bone.

"I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar's Legion taught here..."

Cool and calculated, almost a world apart from the deeds he had just committed but for a strange satisfaction she would not yet understand. Not just yet. She would come to understand a great deal about her wasteland... in time.

When she found her voice she marveled at how steady it came to her lips. "And what lesson is that?"

"Where to begin?" he mused.

Almost soft like a song he ran through the chorus of Nipton. Of its people. Of the weak, the dissolute, the disloyal. Of the vices that smothered the town; choked the people so that when their own kin where dragged from their arms screaming, not a single one resisted. Not when they were hacked to pieces, bludgeoned to death, burned alive atop melting tires and broken wood, strung to crosses to suffer and die. Not a one would rise to defend the other. There was nothing left in the town. Nothing but greed and fear. So Nipton had to burn.

Something in her stomach had twisted along with his words. Something in her had begun to gnaw, became troubled. A seed had been planted. A seed that twisted somewhere, and she couldn't place where. Couldn't know if it was from the pungent odor of burning corpses, the barbarism so proudly and boldly on display, or the lack of virtue to be found in the smoldering ruins of this town. Everything had been so easy for her before Nipton, a path so straight and so narrow. It had been like following the course of the bullet from the hole in her head to the hand that had pulled the trigger. Here at Nipton, it had all changed. Things had become complicated. Lines she thought existed blurred around the edges. Her road split here before the burning husk of something new. Somehow, suddenly, her fate began to bleed around the edges into the Mojave. The colors started to run. Started to mix.

She didn't know what else to say. "I'll do as you ask," came out sounding almost like a request for guidance.

Perhaps her lack of zeal dissatisfied him. Something in him turned, almost impatient, away from her just then. Perhaps she had not been enough to keep his curiosity. Perhaps that was a blessing.

"Then I bid you Vale - until we meet again."

And like a promise that foretold the future with bold certainty, Vulpes Inculta had marched out of Nipton. His legion unit followed after like specters as hounds soon followed after their masters. Eventually she was left standing there alone, staring into the Mojave after it had long since swallowed the unit back into the landscape. All alone, surrounded by the print of the Legion hand, she stumbled over herself. Where did she go from here? Where did she fit? Now? Before? Where had these memories gone? What had a thing like the Legion been to her in a time before this? There were no answers for her and the Mojave only gazed silently back, hide rippling with the lingering heat of an approaching dusk. Eventually she turned towards Town Hall and disappeared inside.

* * *

><p><em>"Strange Fruit"<em>


	3. III

**DISCLAIMER: **Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><strong>AN: **Vignettes concerning Courier Six.

* * *

><p><strong>III.<strong>

_Had a sweet little girl, I lose my baby, boy ain't that bad  
>Had a sweet little girl, I lose my baby, boy ain't that bad<br>You can't spend what you ain't got,  
>you can't lose some little girl you ain't never had.<em>

_..._

If there was one thing she relearned about herself early on it was that she was quite the crack shot. Out back, behind the saloon, Sunny had been pleased at every single can and bottle nailed. It was like replaying old events, the motions of an old habit; muscle memory. When she held the rifle against her shoulder, sighted through the scope for the first time (could it be called the first time?), she held her breath and pulled tight and watched the glass bottle explode. The sun flared hot against a thousand shards for one brief instant. Sunny had been pleased, but the girl with the scar resting over her face had been more so. There was something solid, dependable, back. Something reclaimed. But there was a significant difference between shooting bottles or catching geckos between the eyes and disabling a feral ghoul, or a swarm of them for that matter. She would discover this. Luckily, when it came to advice given in long-range technique, she was more than happy to accept tips from a 1st Recon rough-neck. Tucked up in some antique vestige of the Old World, some giant maw of a beast to have withstood the nuclear Armageddon, Manny Vargas ran her through sharpshooter technique. She took shots at trash and he critiqued and refined some of her approach.

"Remember, it's not a race. That's important. Shit all around doesn't matter, it's just you and the target and nothing else. You'll waste twice as much time if you miss your mark and have to reload again. Get it in one. Exhale before you pull the trigger. Trust me, it makes a difference."

She nodded.

"You've got potential. Could be a real marksman with a little more practice... and a better rifle. If you want to try a few practice shots at some ghouls, up the road going west you'll find some. Mostly empty on that stretch, but we've had them coming down past the tracks a couple of times. Might be some up there now but the Repconn is swarming with them, that's for sure. When you head up that way, you better know your business, girl. I'd go with you but I'm stuck up in this bastard all day. They're counting on me to keep watch, to keep the trouble away."

She waved it off. "I got it. If I don't... you can blow off their heads when I come hauling ass back down here," she tried to joke.

He smiled but didn't reply to that. "Hey, no kidding, be careful. Feral ghouls are fucking nasty as they come... and fast. It's not worth getting killed over."

She nodded again and slung the rifle over her shoulder. "Thanks."

Manny ran a hand across his scruffy jaw. "Look, go down to the motel and see Boone. Last room to the right, bottom floor. Boone's a sniper, same as me. Used to spot for him when we were enlisted with the NCR."

Something in the way Manny brought up the other sniper stirred her curiosity. There was something in his tone that leaked into his posture. Something that stirred the thing in her that made her restless; maybe the same thing that made her wander. "Another sniper from the NCR?" she asked.

"Yeah, well, after we got out, I talked him into settling down here. So here we are. I'd introduce you, but uh... we're not so friendly right now. But go talk to Boone, see if he'll go with you. He's off-duty right now and I'd feel better about it."

Again the silent nod. She turned for the little wooden door but Manny caught her; he seemed to remember something.

"Shit, giving you the fat about my troubles and I don't think I even caught your name."

She hesitated, a fraction of a moment caught hitched in her throat. _You and me both..._

"Rukkis. I'm called Rukkis," she answered after a beat.

Manny smiled at that. "Hope you live up to your namesake."

Oh how she tended to.

..

She did not go down to the motel as she had said she would. If there was another thing that she had rediscovered about herself early on it was her natural ability to manipulate words. Or flat out lie. There was not much _Meeting People _could do for innate talent. (Or was it a practiced skill?) She had become accustomed to trucking it alone and now it felt awkward to implore someone she didn't even know for help. Even if it was just to shadow her up to the Repconn. She didn't even know the situation at the facility. Hadn't ever seen a feral ghoul, for that matter. (Right?) She hitched the rifle higher over her shoulder, waved at Dr. Straus's quietly disgruntled mercs as she passed, and marched out of the town. At the tracks she crouched and took in her position; she was between the pass and the hired guns. Perfect. Rifle down, cradled against her shoulder, she sighted until she found her target. It was something skinny, something twisted; some rotted ghost of what had once been human. Some alien chill she hadn't yet felt squirmed under her skin and the feeling unsettled her. She hated the feeling. Irritated, she let out her breath and squeezed.

She had always made it a habit to rationalize her equipment. Couldn't carry that much on so light a frame so she had to pick and choose. The rifle was a constant companion slung across her back, the weathered but reliable 10mm at her belt, and a salvaged machete bumping against her hip. It was a light but dependable load. Insurance in case you couldn't kill from afar and freedom to run like hell when it wasn't so very afar any longer. So when she came tearing back down the road into Novac like a maniac she had five feet between her and the spitting, snarling skeletons. Picking and choosing proving its worth. Five feet that saw her back to town where Straus's grunts brought down the creatures in a hail of gunfire. The sniper had been right, feral ghouls were fucking nasty... and the Repconn was infested with them.

She hated herself for being so afraid. A foreign yet familiar terror washing up. Some terrible aversion to those miserable reflections of once-people. Grudgingly she approached the motel, last door on the first floor. She swatted dust off her pants, tamed the half of her head that had hair self-consciously, and rapped at the door. No answer. She waited, jostled a foot, then knocked again. Nothing. She listened but didn't hear anything and so she carefully tried the knob. Locked. Could never keep well enough away. Never. One covert glance and she was crouched with a pin, twisting the small metal until she got what she wanted. A rewarding click later and she slid silently inside, closing the door quickly. It was dark in the room. Darker, especially, after the bright glare of the Mojave sun. The room was undefinable as she moved forward - right over an empty glass. The splitting crack seemed much louder in the silent room than she would have imagined it to be; the glass crunching under her boot like a bomb going off. Had the thing been full? She thought she could see stains across the floor, splattered about. She wanted a better look but that's when he came around the far corner, tight and coiled and ready. Had he been surprised to see her? It was hard to tell in the bad lighting. The lack of lighting. An instant later and he was advancing on her like a predator, she retracing her steps back towards the door.

"You shouldn't be here," he growled, low and dangerous. "Get out."

"Manny sent me," she stammered, "to see Boone."

"You looking for trouble?" was his menacing snarl, stalking ever closer. "_Get_. _Out_."

And out she instantly got, rather frightened and unsettled. It was a different sort of fright than the ghouls. It was a strange and unsettling curiosity that would send her back to Manny with questions. Would eventually raise many more, in time. Questions to a terrible truth doggedly concealed. Couldn't leave anything well enough alone. Never could.

But right now, shaken and sullen and wandering away from Novac, Rukkis determined effortlessly that she did not like Craig Boone. Not at all.

* * *

><p><em>"You Can't Lose What You Never Had"<em>


	4. IIII

**DISCLAIMER: **Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><strong>AN: **Oops. This one got long. :U

* * *

><p><strong>IIII<strong>.

_And I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west  
>I went to the crossroad, baby, I looked east and west<br>Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress._

...

Veronica was the first to actually follow her. Before the sniper or the robot or the doctor or the dog, it was Veronica. Maybe it was that first, real bond that would forge such a fast relationship. The first one, the longest one. Maybe it was how easily they could laugh together, could joke with each other. Maybe it was their style of combat - Veronica's close melee complemented by Rukkis at the distant rifle. Maybe it was Veronica's cool indifference towards the waring factions of the Mojave that put Rukkis at ease, made things easier. Maybe it was that they both wandered; both looking for something lost.

Whatever it was, Rukkis secretly felt it had more to do with the unspoken level of trust between them. It was a trust she didn't have with the distant Boone or the enigmatic Arcade. There were no secrets between the courier and the scribe. So it was no secret between either women why the courier left Boone in Vegas and instead brought the scribe with her on her last run for Dhatri (Ignoring Arcade's admonishment regarding the NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel.) There were some things she couldn't tell Boone, some things she had to keep from Arcade. Things that she hoped to tell the medic... one day. Things she would never be able to tell the sniper. It all came back to trust. It was a trust she didn't have with the distant 1st Recon shooter or the enigmatic Follower of the Apocalypse. Her secret was like a flame, like the lights of New Vegas. They burned bright for her and she was a moth. Like how the Mojave sang her name across its wind-whipped, naked expanse.

The two trucked it to McCarran, making fast time. There was no greater motivation than getting to Dhatri before the blistering sun ripened the festering bounty beyond recognition. Already they could smell the progress from within the burlap sack. Rukkis held it at a distance, juices already starting to leak through. She had learned on her first run the virtue in a timely return. Cook-Cook had been barely recognizable, all bloated and discolored. Boone had to assure the Major of the identity and even then they got Betsy to verify. Why all the trouble? Running around the expanse of the desert for a cause she wasn't even sure she believed in, for what? Well, if there was something else that she had relearned about herself early on, it was her ridiculous allure to caps. Caps. NCR dollars. Legion coin. All that glittered was gold. She was incapable of resisting the allure, like a moth to the flame. If the pay was right, no job wasn't.

The Mojave was Vegas and Vegas the Mojave. She may have lost her first hand at the table but now she truly knew the game for the loss. Learned the rules of the House - and you had to buy a seat at the table to play. Always. Vegas never gave anything away for free. Never. Just like Gomorrah's girls. Out in the wastes you had the mettle or you didn't. In Vegas you had the caps or you had nothing.

..

She had been wandering around, poking through the wastes, never being able to leave it alone. Maybe it was some strange curiosity. Some morbid fascination with the brutality of Mojave life. Maybe it was something in her blood. The thing that made her roam. Could never sit still for too long. She had paused, crouched, sighted through her scope at some concrete fortress. Boone had seemed harder. More distant.

"What's that?" she had asked.

"Camp McCarran."

She had verified the base on her Pip-Boy and squinted out towards it again.

"NCR, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Know anyone there?"

"Maybe."

"Want to go take a look?"

"Not really."

She had lowered the rifle, squinted up against the sun at the sniper. He hadn't seemed excited, but then again, he rarely ever did. She hadn't been able to determine his expression beyond the blinding glare; beyond those dark lenses. She frowned.

"Boone... what happened to your wife?"

_That _she had been able to see. With or without having been able to read his face.

..

The two trucked it to McCarran, making fast time. The NCR military base rose up higher and higher as they approached the gate. She was sweating. She was thinking about McCarran's concourse - about Farber's terrible cooking. About how it wouldn't taste so terrible after a long day collecting Dhatri's last and final bounty. She caught a sudden breath of the soggy sack and her stomach roiled. Maybe she'd just settle for water instead. Cold water. Or maybe see if she could lift something better... two bottles of ice-cold Nuka-Cola. Another thing relearned quickly – fast hands and an insatiable thirst to _collect. _She'd be sure to collect something to drink the moment she got a chance. Her dry throat clenched at the thought. Veronica whistled low then and brought her out of the daze.

"Trust the NCR to have a foothold just about everywhere. How many guys do you think they have?" the scribe asked.

Rukkis shook her head. "Too many."

If Dhatri had ever shed tears, it was the closest he'd ever come to doing so when she dumped the sack's contents to the ground. Nephi's head made a thick, wet sound and rolled a foot or two. Veronica made a noise behind her and something in Rukkis knew that the scribe was trying to stifle a giggle. It made her smile despite how she attempted a serious face for the Major. Dhatri payed her, praised her, and sent her to the concourse for drinks on him. The two women didn't need telling twice. It was a ridiculous relief to leave the burning heat outside. Corporal Farber was equally happy to hear about the Fiends and set them up real nice. The two girls took their drinks and found seats well away from the rest of the troopers, nestled tightly in a dim corner.

"So," Veronica whispered as she pried her lips away from her bottle, "you're still sure about this?"

The courier swallowed her whiskey down and pulled a face. "Yeah. Oh, and thanks... again. You know... for coming with me and all."

The scribe waved a dismissive hand and smiled. "No sweat. Not like I have to worry about losing reputation with the NCR, being with the Brotherhood and all."

They giggled softly between themselves.

"But what about you?" the scribe asked after a moment. Concern brought a faint crease between her brows. "What are you going to do if they suspect you?"

Rukkis made a face. "They won't. I've done a lot of good stuff for them now and it's not a secret. They're starting to talk, you know. Talkative bastards. Sometimes they even come up and mention it to me. It's kind of funny. Anyway, wouldn't make sense to help them so much if I was against them, right? It'll be fine."

Veronica watched her with dark, considerate eyes. "So why do _this_ now? Why risk it?"

Rukkis looked down at her bottle and swirled the contents around slowly. Changing it up. Never staying still. "Because."

..

She had left her sniper with the 1st Recon unit. Boone had been giving her his sullen, half-ass tour of McCarran when they had run into the sharpshooter squad. Rukkis had instantly liked the Alpha Team. Sterling and Gorobets were polite. Betsy and Bitter-Root were rough but interesting. She had a blast tormenting 10 of Spades. While Boone had been preoccupied talking with the Lieutenant and Corporal, Rukkis had wandered away, rifling through the camp. The further she got the heavier her pockets had become. She had kept her productive course and eventually wandered straight into the terminal building. Inside she found caps to lift off the old, pre-War slots, wandering around until she eventually wandered straight into trouble. Always like a moth to the flame. She had only been pulling Dandy Boys off a shelf, hadn't even noticed the corporal leaning against the far wall behind her, obscured behind an open door.

"Hey! What are you doing there?"

Rukkis had flinched sharply, the box of prewar food hitting the ground. She had turned quickly but he was already on her, catching her by the arm and hauling her away from the supplies on the shelf. The corporal had made her empty her pockets and had confiscated all of her recently acquired supplies. (Some not so recently.) Rukkis had started to argue, growing louder when the man didn't respond, didn't return things that had never even been in McCarran. (She had salvaged most of it fair and square. Or so she told herself.) That was when a door behind them had opened and a woman looked out with a face that suggested someone had pissed in her drink.

"What the hell is going on out here, Corporal? I'm trying to work in here."

Again the man had grabbed her arm and pulled her before the irritated woman.

"Caught this one stealing supplies, Lieutenant. I've got it under control."

The woman had stared down at Rukkis then, had taken a long drag from a cigarette and let the smoke escape in a slow trail, wafting up past hooded eyes. The Lieutenant had studied her like that for a moment, expressionless, before she had changed stations and flicked her gaze towards the man holding Rukkis tightly.

"That's all right, Corporal. Send her in."

The man in uniform looked less than pleased but the look that had passed between the two seemed to carry some unspoken understanding and before she knew it, Rukkis had been ushered inside the door. She had very clearly heard it shut close. There she had found herself, standing in a small room with lockers along one wall and a giant glass window blown into the side of another, with the Lieutenant standing and considering her. The lady hadn't been one for wasting time.

"You stick out like a sore thumb around here," the woman had observed flatly.

..

The two girls finished their drinks while Rukkis split their earnings. She pressed her empty bottle against the side of her face and winced. The cool glass was a welcome relief to the swollen heat there. Veronica smiled with empathy and pressed her own cold bottle to her thigh and sighed. If there was one thing Nephi had once had in life it had been one hell of a mean swing. They sat for a while longer, the two of them, before eventually leaving the concourse. They found Boyd waiting for them outside the interrogation room with Corporal Hornsby.

"He's inside. You ready to continue where we left off?" the Lieutenant asked.

Rukkis nodded.

"I've gotta tell you," Boyd admitted with a girn, "I think you must have done something to him yesterday. Rattled him. Haven't seen him so withdrawn before..." She trailed off, observing Rukkis keenly. "What the hell is that? Did he do that to you yesterday?"

The dusty courier self-consciously raised a hand to the side of her swollen face. "Oh... no. This one was Driver Nephi."

Boyd arched a brow. "No shit? Thought I heard mention someone was taking care of our Fiend problems. Didn't realize it was you. Well done." The Lieutenant quickly brought the conversation back to the matter at hand. "So... you remember the drill?"

There was a fraction of a moment's pause.

"Yes."

..

They had discussed the prisoner. Discussed the situation. He was a Legion Centurion. An elite commander who had defied the laws of Caesar. Defied the offers of the NCR. Rukkis had smelled good money in the job and so she had agreed to give it a try. Could never turn away the prospect of making more caps; all that glittered. While Boyd had gone back in to further harass the prisoner, Rukkis had stayed outside to think. She thought about everything she had gathered from her run-ins with the Legion – few that they were. She thought back to Vulpes and the things he had told her. She had only known one other centurion in her wanderings. Aurelius of Phoenix had intimidated her... and fascinated her. She had given the Legion officer some NCR tags she had found; she had wanted his helmet. He had thought they were her kills and she hadn't ever corrected that assumption. She could tell it amused him to believe so. Severus wasn't so easily convinced. Hadn't been so taken with her either. She avoided him. Had made it a point to avoid the suspicious decanus. She thought back on Vulpes and the standard he had so proudly bared.. and then Boyd had called her into the sealed room.

He was sat in the only chair in the little, naked room. He still wore his armor, still dirtied with the dried and flaking filth of some long passed battle. He had looked much like a caged predator then, tethered and unable to kill or escape. Sullen and disdainful of everything around him. He had turned bright, predatory eyes on her the moment she had approached. She had been able to see his contempt from the door.

"What an ugly little worm you are," he had sneered. "What pile of excrement did the lieutenant pluck you from, worm?"

Rukkis had thought back to Vulpes. In her pocket, she felt along the cool surface of Caesar's Mark.

"I'm with the Legion," she had replied coolly. "I'm here to kill you before you talk."

She hadn't been able to tell whether he had looked more like laughing or spitting at that. "A woman? You're nothing. You're some inept mercenary the NCR is paying to supplement its own incompetent soldiers."

Rukkis had thought quickly on Boyd's unwavering stare. "Corruptio optimi pessima. Caesar sees you as a threat now."

And it had been as simple as that. With only a few words she had instantly turned the tables. It had been a rather surprising effect, in retrospect. Something new had sprung immediately into the commander. Like a key that had finally been found for an impenetrable lock, Rukkis had deftly broken through whatever grating had separated the previous interrogations from the unresponsive officer. There had been a flicker of something at her words. It had been very strong and very real, even if it had only been there for a second before being smothered. Had it been fear? Or had it been desperation?

"No!" the officer argued. "Listen, Caesar's secrets are safe with me. I stayed alive because Caesar would've wanted it. I'm useless to him dead."

She had ground. Rukkis had shook her head in response. "You're a danger to him alive. Your knowledge threatens him."

"I've told them nothing," he had ground out. "They've gotten nowhere. I'm a centurion, for Christ's sake. I deserve his trust."

Rukkis had thought back to Vulpes and his almost-sneer in the face of ruin. "Caesar's laws are absolute," she had replied disdainfully. "He does not grant exceptions."

And then she had broken through another wall. Something further had been torn down. It was almost something she could visibly see in the man... the manner in which his body had seemed to shrivel into itself. Shrivel or slump? It had been like Vegas. Like watching a player realize she had just lost her hand. Something in her gut had stirred at that.

"You have to let this go," he had said softly. Or had that been pleading? "I'll disappear. No one will ever see me again." His eyes had flickered away from her face for an instant at the admission. "That was always the plan in the first place."

Rukkis had frowned, had considered what the officer had just told her. Or rather, _how_ he had told her. It had been in the tone of his voice, something she had recognized from a place she could no longer recall. Something in her gut had stirred at that. Perhaps it had been the thing that couldn't stay still for too long. The thing that had made her walk the wastes. Always moving. Drawn to some distant flame she had never been able to reach. She had vaguely considered the Legion elite before her, the man she was stripping bare, so lost in her thoughts as she had been. She had thought distantly that he had looked very much like a man who had just lost everything at the table.

"So...," she had mused more to herself than anyone, "in addition to treason you're also a deserter?"

She hadn't intended to panic the man. Hadn't even realized she'd asked the question when she did; thinking aloud. He had panicked, though. It had been sharp and clear like an alarm. He had called for Boyd instantly. At that moment he had believed she would kill him. Rukkis had quickly left the room when the lieutenant had called her out and took her place. In hindsight, she had probably been almost as unsettled as the centurion had been... and the trouble was, she couldn't place why at the time. After a bit Boyd had called her back in as the Lieutenant left the room once more. Rukkis had crept back inside, watching the Legion elite caged in his dismal little cell, and had suddenly felt a wave of pity for the position the centurion was in. And then, suddenly, Rukkis had placed her earlier feeling. It had been sympathy.

The officer had looked up at her as she had approached him. There had been something new in his eyes as he had silently watched her take her place before him again. Some alien resignation that hadn't been there before... that she had never seen the likes of before on any of the crimson soldiers. It had been something betrayed. It had settled across his shoulders like a yoke. He had done his best to mask it, had clung to hope, but that had failed him.

"You don't have to do this," was his quiet plea.

She hadn't known what to say. How did one respond to something like that? How did one handle a soldier so different from the rest she had encountered? It was foreign, as far as her experience with Legion had been. He hadn't been like the rest – this one thought differently. It had been apparent to her the moment she had even learned about his unique surrender. Suddenly Rukkis had doubted herself and her objective. She had gazed down and really looked at the man. His fate had suddenly melted into the Mojave. It had become another variable of the wastes. Just another dark shade thrown into the light of the sun, making everything gray around the edges. He had sat before her, knowing the inevitable. Awaiting what couldn't be altered. It had suddenly reminded her sharply of somewhere else. Had reminded her vividly of a little patch of Mojave soil not too far off Goodsprings. A patch where she had once sat, awaiting the inevitable – and that cold, empty desperation to be anywhere else.

His impatience at her lack of response had brought her back from that patch of desert, maybe had even bolstered him. "I've proven my loyalty. All you're doing is killing a loyal soldier. If that's Caesar's policy, then I say his empire will crumble," he had shot bitterly.

Rukkis considered the Legion officer quickly and had almost been surprised at what she already knew she was going to do. Almost surprised.

"Come with me," she had whispered eagerly.

"What?" His head had snapped up, suspicious and disbelieving. His eyes had been wary; large as hers. Both had stared at the other, equally surprised by this turn.

"You want to disappear?" she had breathed softly, urgently; she hadn't wanted to draw Boyd's attention. "I'm offering you a way out. A one-time deal. A way to leave it behind. You can fold, right here, right now, or you can come with me." Her eyes had bored into his, just as his had drilled into hers incredulously. "Leave it behind and come with me."

As if it would be that simple.

..

They found Boyd waiting for them outside the interrogation room with Corporal Hornsby.

"He's inside. You ready to continue where we left off?" the Lieutenant asked.

Rukkis nodded.

"I've gotta tell you," Boyd admitted with a girn, "I think you must have done something to him yesterday. Rattled him. Haven't seen him so withdrawn before..."

Rukkis wasn't really paying attention to Boyd anymore. Her mind was on the task at hand. On the Legion prisoner inside the stark, little room, sitting in that one little chair. Boyd made a comment she just barely caught.

"Oh... no. This one was Driver Nephi."

Silus hadn't touched her. He had been all defense. He had let her land as many blows as she had wanted before feigning defeat. It had looked good, though. It had the lieutenant believing it.

Boyd arched a brow. "No shit? Thought I heard mention someone was taking care of our Fiend problems. Didn't realize it was you. Well done." The Lieutenant quickly brought the conversation back to the matter at hand. "So... you remember the drill?"

There was a fraction of a moment's pause. Her mouth set into a hard line.

"Yes."

She remembered both.

* * *

><p><em>"Cross Road Blues"<em>


	5. V

_**DISCLAIMER: **__Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><em>_**A/N: **__Vignettes concerning Courier Six._

* * *

><p><strong>V.<strong>

_The meanest woman I most ever seen  
>I asked for water she brought me gasoline, oh<br>The meanest woman, boy, I most ever seen  
>I asked her for water and she come runnin' with gasoline<em>

...

Eventually, she would consider herself poison. A strange venom slowly working its way through the system. Not so much unlike a cazador. The only difference was the sting. The bite. Hers came with a kiss. Soft lips, sweet and inviting. It was the nature of the beast. Couldn't be helped. It was mercy that made her blissfully unaware of it at first. One part denial, one part naivety, and two shots straight to the head. A cazador that didn't recognize itself. As if the Mojave sat back and smiled and watched the venom pump. Watched the venom kill as the girl stood back confused. Would later cradle its child close and whisper: "_See_?"

_See? You're just like me._

_.._

Veronica stayed in the Lucky 38; hadn't left with her. Some part of the scribe had been left behind in the Follower's Outpost. Something that had died there with her brothers and sisters. Veronica had come out of that place changed - not so unlike Rukkis the night Victor had dug her up, pulled her from that dark valley. Gone to bless the world with her heels. The scar over her face forever a reminder. Veronica's scars were on the inside. The scribe had barely been able to meet Arcade's eyes when they had gone back home. (Funny, when had it become home?) So Rukkis wasn't surprised when Veronica hadn't wanted to leave with her, had decided to stay inside, left to her own company. Rukkis had understood.

She was getting hard. When first unearthed from her dark catacomb she had been soft. She had been naked. She had been new. They had taken as much physically from her as they had mentally. She had blinked like a babe in the harsh light outside of Mitchell's house. Had squinted up into the unforgiving sun; the desert's child. Like it had been the first time her eyes had ever seen this wasted world. But she was relearning old scars. Re-discovering things she didn't remember. She was walking her mile. Maybe the Mojave was walking her. The stretch was blistering and long. It darkened her. Hardened her. But she still had chapters to go. More scars to collect. She left one of the new scars back in Vegas.

She left Veronica at the Lucky 38. Left the closest thing she had to a sister at home with the others. (Funny how it had become home.) Left her with Arcade. The doctor would be able to comfort the scribe, he could always find the right thing to say; like a gift. Awkward as he was. The scribe hadn't wanted to leave with her. Scars too fresh. The wound too raw. Veronica had wanted time to be alone. Rukkis understood. She took the opportunity provided and left quickly, left quietly. If Arcade or Boone had noticed the courier packing enough for two, well, neither one brought it up. It would have been a lie if she denied the secret thrill she felt. It would be her first opportunity to recruit the centurion.

..

Silus had taken the Whittaker Farmstead. Had taken it in true Legion form. Veni Vidi Vici. Aut vincere aut mori. Ab irato. He had laid waste in the fashion of the bull. As soon as they had slipped from McCarran, Silus had cast away his NCR disguise; like a dog shedding the mange. He had pulled open the bulging rucksack and donned on his Legion pride. Then they had continued on. They had only stopped when the delicate black of an unfurling campfire rose up in the distance; when they had first discovered the Farmstead. Rukkis and Veronica had crouched low, Silus had remained stubbornly tall and unapologetic; she had pulled out her scope. They had stayed like that for a while longer, watching. Eventually the patent blue of a Powder Ganger had come out of the house, had prodded at the fire and then hacked off a side of roasting meat from the spit.

"Great. Powder Gangers," Rukkis had muttered.

Silus had made a noise at her then. She had looked up at him and seen his hand move toward her machete. She had given it to him, simple as that. Perhaps that had been dangerous, in retrospect. She and Veronica had stayed where they were and had watched the centurion advance on the farm. He went trotting. The Powder Ganger had noticed him approaching too late, had met bloody death at the end of the courier's blade. Silus had then gone inside. There had been noise that the two girls could hear from their location. Gun fire. Shouts. A ruckus. When they had reached the house and slipped within there had been nothing left. Veronica had whispered something in marvel, but Rukkis hadn't been able to make it out. They found the centurion amongst the defeated. He had been slick with fresh blood but Rukkis had suspected little of it had been his own. She couldn't really recall; she had been distracted - there had been a look on his face. There had been four Powder Gangers inside. After Silus took the Whittaker Farmstead, there had only been their remains. He had stood above the slain, splattered in their visceral slick, and there had been a look upon him. No more bars, no more cage. Rukkis had stood amid the gore and the silence and stared at Silus. He had been a Legion hound loosed.

..

Silus had taken the Whittaker Farmstead. He was still there when Rukkis came ambling out of Vegas, when she came looking for him, down the Long 15. A part of her had been afraid to find the place vacant. She wouldn't have been surprised. Another part, however, knew he had nowhere else to go. He was there when she knocked, when she made her way in. The bodies had long since been removed but the stains remained. She was mildly surprised to find Caesar's bull painted on one of the walls in crimson vanity. She was more surprised, though, to find a trooper helmet holding the congealing mess it had been coated in. She wondered briefly whether the trooper had accidentally stumbled upon the Legion wolf or whether the wolf had gone out hunting. Too many of the flock go missing and they take up their guns and hunt down the beast. In the kitchen she found the Legion officer at the table, tending his blade. (Her blade.) He had seemed to like the broad thing and so she hadn't asked for it back. She didn't think he would've given it back even if she had.

"Where'd the helmet come from?" Rukkis asked as she walked into the room.

Silus barely lifted his gaze to regard her; didn't condescend to answer. She wasn't surprised by his contempt. It didn't matter in any regard, Rukkis knew how he had gotten the helmet. She only sighed, dropped her pack, and looked around the battered kitchen.

"Yeah... you can't stay here any longer. We'll find somewhere better for you."

Silus didn't say anything. He had grown sullen and bitter and resentful in his days at Whittaker. Rukkis didn't need to hear it to know; only had to look to see it. _Auribus teneo lupum_. There was a strange pang of pity for the lost centurion and a very sudden and real urgency to give him a purpose. A direction. It was a strange sort of feeling, like a warning, that if she didn't move, something here would begin to fall apart. The killer she had to keep close; to protect it and to protect the rest. _Auribus teneo lupum_. Otherwise she would lose her grip on the wolf.

"I came here for your help," she announced.

"My help?" Silus all but sneered at her. "You think if you say things like that I'll be easier to control." He gave her an ugly look. "I know why you're here. You want me to follow you like one of your miserable, degenerate dogs. To simply concede to your orders - a profligate woman of that lascivious hole of gamblers and whores."

There was a distant, familiar heat. The old smoldering flame that hadn't quite died on that night outside of Goodsprings. Something that flickered behind her ribs, a dull blaze that she could still feel.

"You owe it to me," she snapped. "I got you out of McCarran when you couldn't do it yourself. You pledged your-"

And suddenly Silus was at her throat. It took Rukkis a moment to realize she had hit the wall. All she could feel was the centurion's forearm pressing into her trachea like a steel rod. Rukkis realized she couldn't breath, only make little gasps, that the labored breathing she heard was his own - was his sudden, explosive fury. Somewhere in the back of her mind Rukkis noted she could barely touch the floor. It was the same thing that noted Silus had left the machete at the table. Interesting. Whatever real threat she had felt quickly faded.

Rukkis thrust her hand into her pants and fumbled in her pocket. She fished around for only a moment before she grasped what she was looking for and quickly thrust the medallion before him. It was only a moment before the Mark of Caesar was there like law between them. Silus's reaction was what Rukkis had hoped and had expected. Something in the officer succumbed like habit at the sight of Caesar's will. His arm slackened and Rukkis gratefully noted she could support her weight again.

"You gave me your word," she choked out at last, searching the centurion's furious face. "Is there no honor in Legion word?"

Silus barely managed to tear his gaze away from the coin to the courier's searching eyes. Rukkis would always remember how much he hated her at that one moment. "You know nothing of the Legion," he ground out lowly in disgust.

"I know that you can't go back to them."

Silus released her at that like she was something venomous.

"You can't go back to them but you can come with me," Rukkis whispered. "Forge something new for yourself. Wasn't that the plan from the beginning, Silus?"

She knew she had won. Even before the centurion had admitted defeat to himself. She could see it in those beautiful, light eyes. Her words... a strange venom working through the system. Her lips, sweet and inviting. Eventually, she would consider herself poison. It was mercy that made her blissfully unaware of it at the moment.

They sorted through the things she had brought and left the Whittaker Farmstead behind. They headed south, following the snaking trail of the Long 15 down toward the Repconn test site. Rukkis would wonder at a later time whether this was when she had doomed the Legion centurion. His fate simply a progression from this one point in time. A strange venom. Perhaps it was already under way, had already happened on the day they had first met in that little, blown out room. The nature of the beast. But that would be miles away and pages of scars yet to collect. Right now, she still had an entire road to walk.

* * *

><p><em>"Meanest Woman"<em>


	6. VI

**DISCLAIMER: **Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><strong>AN: **Vignettes concerning Courier Six.

* * *

><p><strong>VI.<strong>

_Who will you hurt next, how will you start  
>Who'd be the next one, baby you tear apart<br>Blessed be your heart, cursed be your name  
>Blessed be your heart, cursed be your name<br>Who'd be the next one darlin', that you'd put to shame?_

...

She had first met Arcade on her way into Vegas. She hadn't had the caps to get into the Strip at the time so she had gone searching for work. If the pay was right, no job wasn't. The King had kept her busy; plenty to do. The King had sent her to the Old Mormon Fort on business and it had been history from there. Arcade hadn't been very impressed with her singular point of view at the time. That was okay, she hadn't been very impressed with the pessimistic nerd's lack of solidity of character. But eventually they had come around. His skeptical acknowledgment of her work around Freeside and her curiosity flamed by his evasive complexity. Always having to poke, to pry. Could never leave anything well enough alone. He had blown her off time and time again. Perhaps that had been fuel for the fire. Always like a moth. Eventually, the two had come around. It would be fate. Arcade, unbeknownst to him at the time, had humored the girl with the scarred head and, in doing so, had planted his influence. An influence that Rukkis would clutch desperately to, that would eventually govern the choices she would make on her road ahead. That was why on the day House had finally called, she had taken Arcade with her.

Arcade had been the first inside the Lucky 38. He hadn't been as enthusiastic about the casino as Veronica when the scribe would eventually arrive. The doctor hadn't much trust for the Securitron with the unsettling face; House's wandering eye. On many topics Rukkis and Arcade would disagree, but on that particular one they were in accordance. On the day that she would eventually call on House - it was Arcade that would be at her side.

Arcade had also been the first to cross the Colorado with her.

..

The two sat quietly aboard the raft as Lucullus carried them across the broad river. Cottonwood Cove grew distant. Rukkis had long since lost sight of the brightly colored centurion commander. Aurelius had been imposing but the girl had immediately liked the quiet cursor. There was a strange mildness about his manner that seemed almost out of place amongst the Legion stereotype. He had looked at her with subtle amusement when she had walked down the dock, curious at the strange profligate girl who carried Caesar's mark. Then, with powerful arms, Lucullus ferried them across the water and to Fortification Hill. Arcade was less than impressed with the silent, towering cursor. Was less than impressed with their trip across the river. Not for the first time, he leaned down and muttered quietly that this was a mistake.

"I just want to hear what he has to say," was her simple and resolute answer.

Arcade wasn't very impressed with that either.

Eventually the Fort drew close and Lucullus informed them they would be docking soon. It was a make-shift landing of wood and salvaged parts. The cursor pulled them up and tied the raft and they disembarked. Recruits stood further up the bank and watched silently behind dark lenses as the party approached. Lucullus led them through the Fort's outer gates where inside they were forced to relinquish their weapons - were required to relinquish chems as well - but her silver tongue allowed her to carry her addictions inside. Once inside, the Mojave became a completely different world than anything she had previously encountered in the wastes. A place where disparaged women trudged under the weight of their daily burdens. Where militant men sweat and labored under the strain of their vehement drills. Where the Bull demanded much of its people.

Before a great tent mounted with the image of Caesar, she finally arrived. Arcade reluctantly waited for her outside. Within its folds Rukkis found herself at the heart of the camp, a hive of fervid Praetorian guards. They regarded her with wolfish eyes, keen and penetrating; predators, all. It was something slightly different from Lucullus, Aurelius, the Legion of the battlefields she had encountered. It was something she remembered from Nipton. A leering maw, a savage nature below almost quiet serenity. As if in being so close to their master they were content - but always that enduring ache for blood roiling beneath the flesh. The difference between the dogs at the hearth and the dogs loosed to hunt. This patient blood thirst she saw before her versus the unrestrained savagery she already knew. Then their master, at the end of this crimson vanity. Where the tent opened into the receiving chamber, she first saw this lord of war. Seated at a throne of horn and crimson vanity, Caesar was sat expectantly. It was almost surreal. The strangely gentle features hardly spoke of the tyrannical legend she had heard tell of.

"So," the fatherly looking man began, "I finally get to meet the courier who's accomplished so much in so little time. That is why I summoned you here, right? I mean, a man nearly kills you, and your response is to track him across the breadth of the Mojave? You arrive on the Strip and waltz into the Lucky 38 like someone left you a key under the doormat? You visit the Tops, and next thing you know, the head of the Chairmen is fleeing the Strip like a whimpering little pup? When you set your mind to something, you get results. I like that. The question is... are you ready to get started?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Hadn't it always been that? Whether she had known it or not, being plucked from that shallow hole in that dark, Mojave night? Hadn't it always been there, just out of reach? Like a gift, carefully wrapped in desert soil. Like the chip; endless potential. Her road winding down to this. She had thought her path simple. That was only because she hadn't been able to see around the bends. It was a simple matter now, though.

_Are you ready to get started?_

Was that a choice? Whether she was ready or not, things had already begun to start. She could trace them back to Goodsprings. But it had started even before then, hadn't it? It appeared to her, suddenly, that from the moment she had taken that package, had taken that Vegas chip, things had gotten underway. Like something out of her hands. Something she was compelled to follow. Almost like watching everything unfold around her like a film. As if that chip, once in her hands, had started it all. Or... had it begun even before that? Somewhere lost in the memories that had been blown out of her skull. Spattered across the Mojave sand when she lost her hand at the table. Flat broke. Bust. Where here, before the Caesar to the Legion, it all seemed to come into sharp relief. Where she came to realize that her singular path - once so straight and simple, like following the course of the bullet from the hole in her head to the hand that had pulled the trigger - was only a vein in a greater artery of the Mojave. Here now, where all veins merged into one. She felt something cold and heavy settle into the pit of her stomach. She watched the warlord watching her and the words were simple things on her lips.

"What do I have to do?"

Once back outside, Rukkis quietly updated Arcade on the proceedings as the pair made their way slowly towards the Legion bunker. She had never seen the doctor so furious and riled in all her wandering with him. She silently wondered if it was the Followers' old wound that Caesar had once before been one of their flock. She silently wondered if some aspect of it reminded Arcade of his own past that he kept so guarded. She worried her lip nervously as they made their way down smooth-worn wooden steps. The bunker grew nearer and then Arcade paused.

"I need to talk to you about something," he began in a new tone, "if you have a minute."

She looked over her shoulder and then paused with him. "Sure."

There was a look on his face. A look that spoke of that cold, heavy weight Rukkis felt inside herself. Arcade didn't feel the need to pussyfoot, and Rukkis had always appreciated that about the man. The doctor got right down to the matter at hand.

"Any day now," Arcade began, "Caesar's going to try to march across Hoover Dam and kick NCR out of the Mojave. We're getting caught up in something important out here. Hell, after how you handled Benny, you're practically right in the middle of all this."

Rukkis worried her lip until she tasted that coppery, metallic tang.

"I know I'm just along for the ride," he went on, "but it's made me think about the past, how I might be able to help out."

And so Arcade finally told her about the history that had haunted him his entire life. The secrets he had to keep in order to survive. The whole sordid family story. It didn't change the way she looked at the doctor. Had he been afraid of that, all this time? It only gave her a better sense of him. Allowed her to understand the aspects of the man that had confused her before. She offered Arcade a smile, genuine, the kind of smile that Veronica kept a number count on, and could still taste the blood on her lips.

"Say no more," she said with soft absolution, "I'll do it."

..

When they left the Fort, when seated on that wooden raft with the quiet cursor ferrying them back across the Colorado, Rukkis sat silently and thought about the choices laid before her. She watched the legionnaire's towering form wordlessly as he worked at the river and wondered privately if she had already killed the man. Was his death a certainty he could not foresee? Was it already in the workings? Has she already sealed his fate? She mused on a broader scale and wondered if she had already killed the entire Fort with her decision. Caesar and Lucius, the slaves and the children... Vulpes. She paused on the Frumentarius. The one who had stood at Caesar's right hand. She thought on the way his eyes had settled on her as she stood before their Lord. Something almost self-satisfied. Something almost amused. That same fascination he had held for her in Nipton had drawn her to him in the Fort. They had talked for a little while; of course they had. She was a moth to his flame. His charismatic heat. Funny how the Mojave wound their paths so tightly.

Forever a loyal servant of Caesar's will, Vulpes had immediately assigned her a menial task to carry out for the glory of the Legion. Perhaps it had been a test. Perhaps it had only been for his amusement. He had frumentarii at his command but he had chosen her. She had not been unaware of it but she had been able to refuse. Not something so harmless. Not something from Vulpes. He intrigued her for reasons she couldn't yet descry. Perhaps she intrigued him as well. He had not been so easily won over as even their Caesar had been, yet nor had he been as suspicious of her as Decanus Severus. Even so, there had been something there. Perhaps it had been in the way he had watched her. Something that had bade him to express expectations of her value to the Legion... as dubious as they had been.

Perhaps, in return, it had been the Frumentarius that had influenced Rukkis. His cool, unforgiving shadow that had fallen across her. Or perhaps it had been the austere rhetoric of the Legion; blinded for a moment with the crimson of the Bull. Whatever the source, it had been the despair of the Chairman. The path from the hole in her head to the hand that had pulled the trigger was at its close, as if she had finally drawn to the end of Ariadne's string; bright red and taut. Maybe, in a way, she had given him a parting gift just as cold and pitiless as the cap he had punched into her skull. It had been her choice. A gift, of sorts, from the master of the slave army. For the Chairman, Rukkis had left his fate in the hands of grinning wolves.

As Cursor Lucullus ferried them across the Colorado, she thought of the Legion who sat above the humming pulse of what she awoke below them. She worried her lip until she tasted metallic copper and felt that cold, heavy weight in her stomach. She didn't hate them as Arcade hated them, yet she would be their certain death. She was like poison.

A cazador that was beginning to suspect itself.

..

"Say no more, I'll do it," she had told him.

Arcade had looked at her with bright, searching eyes. "You're a big part of what's happening out here. When you talk to them, they'll understand how important this all is."

Rukkis had only nodded; had realized she would kill them with a kiss. Not only the Bull, but the Bear. She had then realized the extent of what was to come. Did she? Truly? Would she ever? Sweet lips, soft and inviting. A strange venom. Something terrible for something wonderful. See?

_See? You're just like me._

* * *

><p><em>"Who Will Be Next"<em>


	7. VII

**DISCLAIMER: **Fallout New Vegas © Obsidian & Bethesda  
><strong>AN: **Vignettes concerning Courier Six.

* * *

><p><strong>VII.<strong>

_Leavin' this mornin', if I have to ride the blind  
>Babe, I've been mistreated, baby and I don't mind dyin'<br>Well, some people tell me that the worried blues ain't bad  
>Worst old feelin' I most ever had.<em>

...

There was this boy, see. He was a good kid, made do in the best way he could with what little the wastes gave. He was born small but it didn't stay that way for very long. The wastes didn't give much and what it did you had to toil for. His parents were toilers. His father had enlisted with hopes of bringing them a better life - he left them widowed two years into that dream. The wastes swallowed up his body somewhere out in that western heat. His mother floundered for three years more until she couldn't hold the world at bay any longer - went into her room one day and fell into her bed and never got back out. Just laying there until the one day he would try to rouse her and she wouldn't wake. He had put her in that hard, unforgiving earth. Cracked and scarred like everything else. Somewhere in that western heat she found his father again. He had felt pretty certain of it. So this boy, with nothing left for him, gathered the little he had and went. If there was one skill he had honed early on, it was rifle play. For food or for what little work he could find, he toiled at the trigger to survive. On the day that he left, his father's rifle went with him.

You look forward a few years from the day the boy set off into the wastes. You squint through heat rippling off a sun-bleached hide of dust. You glare through the sun glaring through you and you see the progression of things. He glares and all he sees are things passed and gone. Sees all the cracked and bloody scabs of a life spent stumbling through a desert. You see something like a man but not quite a man. He sees something like a fork in the road. He sees his father, sees his mother. Glares through the sun glaring through him and knows that its only time between now and the bleached ivory maw. Knows it's only time before the wastes eventually swallow you with all the rest. He sees his father, sees his mother. He picks one path. Sticks to it. This boy, see, doesn't play by halves. He enlists. New places to catch and tear. New scabs to collect.

There's a boy who's a man who's lost in the desert. He stumbles through sun-bleached dust but never changes course. The sun has darkened him, hardened him. He's gotten used to squinting at life. Used to the catching and the tearing. He stumbles but he never falls. He's familiar with the rippling hide, hardly has to watch where his feet land. He's almost content with the unending sea of barren heat. Almost forgets that he's lost. They recognize his talent; they like how he's darkened, hardened. He enlists and it isn't long before they take notice. Notice all that toiling at his father's rifle. He never plays by halves - he's gotten used to squinting at life. Eventually they stick him with others accustomed to squinting at lives. Lives they send down into the mouth of the Mojave, swallowed up like so many more to come. He was good but he gets better. Almost forgets he ever was lost. He's not stumbling any longer, he's marching. You blink and they pull a carpet up from under him. Didn't even notice it was there. This time, he doesn't just stumble - he falls. He hits dirt. You look back and remember his mother. He looks back and remembers that hard, unforgiving earth. It catches and tears at places he never thought it could. There's a boy who's a man who's hurt in the desert. He suddenly remembers that he's been lost all along.

You look at the boy who set off in the wastes and you see a man on his knees in the dirt. You squint through heat rippling off a sun-bleached hide of dust. You glare through the sun glaring through you and you see the progression of things. He glares and all he sees are things passed and gone. Sees all the cracked and bloody scabs of a life spent stumbling through a desert. You see something like a man but not quite a man. He expects to see something like his father, his mother. Just as damaged, just as used. He sees something else. There was this boy who was a man, you see, and one day he tripped and fell and landed in an oasis in a desert. A place maybe everyone's been looking for, trudging through the waste just to stumble into it. This is where he finds her. He sees her smile at him. She kisses to make it all better. She tells him he looks lost. He thinks maybe he isn't anymore.

There's a man who's still a boy who thought he found an oasis in a desert. One day he wakes up and finds that the oasis is gone. It was only a mirage. The girl is gone with it. He doesn't fall this time. Maybe he never got back up. You look back at the boy who set off in the wastes and you can't find him anymore. He's not there. What you see is a man who's darkened, hardened by the heat. Accustomed to squinting. A collection of scabs - some that never seem to heal. He's always picking at them. Can never leave well enough alone. You look for that boy but all you see is a man who sets off in the rippling heat. Gone into the sun-bleached dust of the Mojave, squinting. Glaring through the sun glaring through him. Squinting and hunting for that ivory maw of hard, unforgiving earth; cracked and scarred like everything else. Looking for where the desert will finally swallow him up. This man, see, doesn't play by halves. He takes his father's rifle. He hopes to find her again, somewhere in that western heat. This time, he doesn't feel so certain of it.

..

This is the man Rukkis sits atop a hill with. Canyon 37. She huddles close to a meager fire and watches how the ghosts plague him. He can't sleep. Even if he could, she suspects he wouldn't. As if all those graves whisper out to him in the growing dark. Like he's looking back, searching for a boy that doesn't exist anymore. She finishes the last of her cram. He hasn't eaten today. Doesn't want to. She sets the can aside and inches closer to the heat, to the sad little heap of brush and flame. She's suddenly very tired.

"You okay?" she asks instead. She already knows the answer, though.

He gives her something she wasn't expecting, however. He turns and looks at her and even with those dark lenses she can see something there. Something's come back... but it isn't the same thing that had brought her out here. It's something that drives a stake into her gut.

"Something's wrong," he murmurs. "Got a group coming our way. Looks like a Legion raiding party. It's big. Might be too big. Even for us."

It's a warning. He wants her out. Without saying it he wants her out and she can hear it in his voice... and she can hear how eager he is for this. Eager to at last embrace what he came out here for. She knows this is what he's been looking for out in the desert. Maybe it wasn't this in the beginning... but maybe because this isn't supposed to be a beginning. Never was. That bleached maw reaching up one last time. Looking for where the desert will finally swallow him up. Maybe she's bad with goodbyes. Maybe she always has been. Maybe she's just selfish. Her mouth sets into a hard line. She knows she won't allow it. For all his faults, she won't put him in that hard, unforgiving earth. Something whispers at her then and asks her why he matters so much. Why this one? She refuses to answer the voice; pushes it out of her mind. Instead:

"What are we waiting for, then?"

Something falls into place.

"Tell the truth... I think this is exactly what I've been waiting for."

Maybe he's selfish too.

..

It's not easy. He doesn't make it easy for her in any way. He's reaching for that abyss and she's desperate to keep it just out of reach. It's hard and she hates him for it. By comparison it's an easier ordeal to cut through the raiding party. Funny how easy it's become to forget the Bull. She almost doesn't think about Vulpes as she kills the Legion boys. Almost. She doesn't have time to reminisce. Not now. Maybe she's selfish. Maybe he is too. She hates him for it; hates him because he can never let go. Like she can never let go. She's working on it, though. Maybe she hates it because he can remember it - remember why he can't let it slip away. He doesn't make it easy for her, but he doesn't die either. In the end, Rukkis still has Boone.

* * *

><p><em>"Walkin' Blues"<em>


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